Moisture is the fastest cause of pebble loss. Footballs, in particular, can quickly lose their pebble pattern because they are often used in inclement weather conditions.
To combat this problem, football leather is heavily tanned—the tanning process being used to help lock out moisture and improve the durability of the football. However, heavy tanning makes the leather surface very hard and slick, which negatively impacts the player's grip on the ball—which is the purpose of pebbling, in the first place. For this reason, it is desirable to develop a pebbled ball skin covering that strikes a balance between preventing moisture absorption while providing a reasonable grip.
Although the present description is directed to skin covers for American footballs, it is to be appreciated that the design disclosed here could be applied to other kinds of inflatable balls that use pebble patterns or leather-based covering materials that use pebble patterns. The term “leather-based,” as used herein, is meant to include natural and synthetic leathers and other equivalent materials that could be pebbled in the same way for use in conjunction with the manufacture and sale of inflatable sports balls.
Therefore, the term “leather-based” should be regarded as referring to materials other than “natural” leather such as, for example, “synthetic” leather or any other material that could substitute for pebbled leather currently in use. In the known prior art, “pebbled” leather is a layer of leather embossed on one side only. The other side is smooth.